SF’s ‘corridor ambassadors’ more than street...

1of4Kenneth Leon cleans on Market Street, where he works the blocks between Fifth and Seventh streets.Photo: Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle

2of4Evette Demings cleans up in San Francisco’s Glen Park. “The more I clean, the more I notice patrons and merchants actually helping out,” she says.Photo: Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle

3of4Stickers adorn a trash can pushed by corridor ambassador Kenneth Leon as he cleans up on Market Street. “As of October, when I first got out here, every day was a mess and it was just dirty. It was a constant battle,” Leon said. “In the last three months, I’ve noticed that since they’ve got all these different companies out here helping cleaning, that the city’s been staying a lot cleaner and it’s made a big difference. And I just hope it stays that way.”Photo: Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle

4of4Kenneth Leon, a corridor ambassador for the Department of Public Works, cleans a section of Market Street.Photo: Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle

Four days a week, nine hours a day, you can catch Kenneth Leon working his beat on Market Street.

He’s easy to spot in his electric green safety coat as he loops continuously between Fifth and Seventh streets, fastidiously sweeping the endless streams of litter, leaves, dirt and debris that accrue on the bustling streets and sidewalks.

“I can’t stand to see a mess,” Leon said on a recent rainy morning about 30 minutes into his shift, which stretches from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. “I want to do as much as I can to keep this neighborhood clean.”

Leon is one of 110 “corridor ambassadors” San Francisco hires for particularly high-traffic zones and areas with clusters of merchants. The program started with about 20 street cleaners during former-Mayor Gavin Newsom’s administration and has grown steadily since.

Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru said “dedicated block sweepers” are important components of street-cleaning strategies in places like Paris and Hong Kong. But beyond pushing a broom and a bin in San Francisco, where street uncleanliness is a perennial complaint, the sweepers are also working as envoys for the city’s efforts to tidy up.

“One thing we ask them to do is get to know who the businesses are, who the neighbors are,” Nuru said. “In general, their job is to be responsible for quality of life in that section.”

Kenneth Leon, a corridor ambassador for the Department of Public Works, cleans a section of Market Street.

Photo: Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle

Leon started as a corridor ambassador last October. Transitioning from his last job, working behind a desk at an auto repair shop, was tough, he said, but the benefits and the chance for advancement — he’d like to become a supervisor in the program — were enticing.

At first, he was met with distrust and, at times, hostility by the people he saw regularly while walking his blocks.

“It was a little rough at first,” he said. “At one point I was ready to hang it up. We’re in the trenches. This job is definitely tough.”

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But over time, he built up rapport with the people he passed each day, many of whom told him they were homeless. He has donated clothes to several people.

“I know a lot of people on a first-name basis out here,” he said. “Until you get to know people, you won’t earn that respect.”

Last year, city officials set aside just over $3 million for Public Works to hire 44 additional ambassadors — four in each of San Francisco’s 11 supervisorial districts. Public Works employs 79 such sweepers and another 31 are contracted by the city’s Human Services Agency.

The corridor workers are picking up as much as 30,000 pounds — or 15 tons — of litter each week, according to Public Works. There were more than 223,000 311 calls for street or sidewalk cleaning last year, city records show.

Public Works collaborated with district supervisors to help confirm that the sweepers were assigned to the blocks most in need of attention. Supervisor Vallie Brown put the newly hired sweepers for District Five on Stanyan Street at the east end of Golden Gate Park — long a trouble spot — and a handful of side streets, including Cole and Schrader.

“The side streets coming down from Stanyan from the park to Cole Valley had been hit really hard from people going to the park, getting on the N-Judah, a lot of homeless stuff, people leaving clothes around — it was getting overwhelming, and Public Works couldn’t keep up,” Brown said.

The sweepers have prompted “amazing feedback from neighbors saying they do a really great job. (The ambassadors) talk to people, people go up to them. It’s just such a good program. It’s not a glamorous job in some ways, but I feel like it’s such a good thing for the neighborhood, to see people, people who care, cleaning up.”

Evette Demings cleans up on Diamond Street in San Francisco’s Glen Park. She feels her work motivates others to litter less.

Photo: Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle

Evette Demings is a minor celebrity among the business owners on Diamond Street in Glen Park.

“I got close to a lot of the residents that walk around here or have jobs here,” she said.

Trash tends to drift down Diamond Street as it slopes toward Bosworth and the Glen Park BART station.

Manhal Jweinat, who owns the Manzoni Italian restaurant on Diamond and the Higher Grounds cafe on nearby Chenery Street, said that if it wasn’t for Demings, “the street would be very dirty. She’s making the difference.”

Evette Demings, a corridor ambassador for the Department of Public Works, cleans a section of Diamond Street in San Francisco’s Glen Park.

Photo: Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle

Demings finds herself handling less trash now compared with when she started as a street sweeper a little over a year ago. The decline is something she attributes to the constancy of her work — people are more likely to litter in a dirty neighborhood, rather than a clean one, she said.

While making her rounds recently, she watched as a driver at a stop sign opened his door to let some trash tumble out onto the street.

“I didn’t say anything, but I caught his eye and he rolled down his window and said, ‘Oh, did I drop some trash?’ And I said, ‘Yes, you did, sir.’ And he picked it up,” Demings said. “When I started, it wasn’t dirty-dirty,’ but it was dirty. I’ve noticed a total difference in this area.”

Dominic Fracassa covers San Francisco City Hall for The Chronicle. He previously worked as a reporter and editor for the Daily Journal, a legal affairs newspaper. He started in news in his home state of Michigan, where he worked as a news director of 103.9 WLEN.